One More Day...

Well... for all those that care.. tomorrow is HALLOWEEN! Gads zooks! Where did October go???
I didn't know what I would post today ... tired of complainin' ..and it doesn't do any good anyway!.. So I thought I would do something Halloweenish. (is that a word?)
Anyway, as everyone knows Carl had this Perils Challenge where he asked you to read books that pertain to this holiday.. Gothic, scary, creepy etc. Now this sort of stuff I can watch in a movie, but it's not my cup of tea to read.. but I joined the challenge determined to find something I could read that would fill the bill.
So as today's post I decided to print up the first page or so of a book I read for the challenge... it was... how do I say this?... funny! Heh.. ok, so that wasn't one of the descriptive words that Carl used.. but it did have a vampire in it! And a werewolf! And even zombies! So ..see there,.... it did fit! So for your enjoyment I'd like you to meet your, not so everyday Vampire: Earl and his best buddy Duke (a werewolf) and the first two pages of a book that immediately told me... I can do this! Let me introduce you to: Gil's All Fright Diner by A. Lee Martinez...........

In the middle of nowhere, along a quiet stretch of road, the diner dreamt of the hungry dead. And of two men.
Well, not men exactly.
Earl bounced in his seat as the pickup quaked. His beer slipped and settled in his lap. He grunted curses as he snatched up the can too late to prevent a yellow puddle around his groin.
"Hell, Duke, do you gotta hit every goddamn hole in the road?"
Duke shrugged and offered a mumbled apology.
"Yeah, well just try and watch it."
Earl reached into the pool of empty beers. "Damn it, Duke! If that's the last beer, I'm going to have to kick your ass." Like Arthur with Excalibur, he withdrew a full beer. "You got lucky." He popped it open and gulped down half its contents.
Duke Grunted.
"How we doing on gas?" asked Earl.
"We got enough."
"How much we got?"
"Enough"
"Damn it Duke, can't you just answer a goddamn question?"
Duke took a moment to lean out his window and spit. "We got enough, Earl."
The rusty gray truck bounced down the dusty road, more of a dirt trail really. Worn shocks were helpless against the rocky, hole-ridden roadway, and with each jolt, the engine rattled as if it might rip free. The tape player didn't work; something the passengers had learned at the cost of a Hank Williams Jr cassette. Spools of black tape hung from the radio's jaws, the inevitable end of an unsuccessful rescue attempt. The passengers rode in silence with only the clatter of seventy-six empty beer cans to fill the quiet. Seventy-six was the exact number of tall-boys that could fit in the front seat before space limitations demanded a transfer to the bed.
The vehicle was an unlikely means of transport for the Earl of Vampires and the Duke of Werewolves. But for a vampire who happened to be named Earl and a werewolf who liked to be called Duke, it was perfectly acceptable. Truth be told, they had called on much worse when the occasion demanded it.
"We go like thirty more miles to the nearest station, y'know?" Earl glanced at the fuel gauge. It trembled on empty. "shit. Should'a filled up at the last place. I told'ja didn't I?"
He contented himself by tossing dirty looks Duke's way the next few minutes.
The vampire was a stringy fellow, pale-- as one would expect-- with an overbite, a large nose, and a ridiculously unsuccessful comb-over. The werewolf was large and hairy, even in his current man form. His monstrous gut barely managed to squeeze behind the steering wheel. A green baseball cap tried, and failed miserably, to contain the thick mane of dark brown hair atop his head. He had never been able to grow a bear, but a permanent five o'clock shadow covered his face.
Earl wore threadbare overalls that were at least as old as he was. (Which, for the record, was much older than he looked, but still not all that old for a vampire.) Duke wore denim jeans, a leather jacket and a T-shirt emblazoned with the slogan "No Fat Chicks".